Wine Wednesday :: Crnko (Silvo Crnko) 2011 Jarenincan

Summer is rapidly drawing to a close but I thought I'd squeeze in another summery wine for the last few hot evenings and beautiful sunsets that remain this season.

What wine is it: 

Crnko (Silvo Crnko) 2011 Jarenincan

What I ate with it: 

brown rice with furikake (a Japanese seaweed  condiment) and seared yellowtail tuna

How much is it: 

$10.99 for a liter bottle

Where to shop for it: 

Wine Exchange (this is the only place I could find it for sale so I apologize if I get your hopes up and you can't find it.)  =P

This wine was absolutely delightful.  It is a rare Czechoslovakian wine.  Not a country widely known for having great wine but they are certainly working up to it if this bottle is any indication.  

The nose was strongly green apple (think the smell of biting into a Granny Smith apple) but the taste was more apple with a pine-y taste also.  (The hubby said it smelled like moments in his childhood when he and tree sap became inseparable.)  =P  It sounds like an odd combination but it actually harmonizes very well.  It is like tasting the fruit and the soil it grew in at the same time. One word of caution: this wine does not sit open very well.  So if you are not able to drink a liter of white wine by yourself, get some girl friends or have a dinner party or something.  If it does end up sitting for too long, it starts to have more resemblance  the scent of cleaning products than wine.  We had a glass left over from Monday evening to Tuesday and it definitely was past its prime.

But I would definitely recommend it over all and hope you all get a chance to try it!

Have a beautiful day!

waiting for a little more summer

So the weather has been undeniably beautiful in SoCal recently.  BUT it has not quite been beautiful enough for me to go diving into a pool or hit the ocean yet.  That could be in large part because I'm a wuss when it comes to cold...like really a wuss.  =P

Let me tell you though - in Arizona, in 100+ degree weather, water is your friend.  And we were in Arizona two weekends ago for a cousin's graduation and spent a bunch of time with family.  Especially since not many family members had seen Hito before this trip.  I had to share some of these pics because Hito got to see another great-grandma.  =)  Bad news is that Great-Grandma has been in and out of the hospital twice since we were there two weeks ago.  =(  Prayers would be appreciated!

 He is still getting the looking at the camera thing down.  =P  Since it was so stinking hot, we chilled in the pool with everyone for a while and got a few cute shots of dad and kiddo in the water.

yup, that's my stylin' baby.  =)  Grandma N. found the floaty and I got the glasses at Target.  Shortly after this picture, they came off.  =P

 Have you started any summer festivities yet?  I am starting to get my calendar out so that I can get bbqs planned!  I am planning on sharing some of my summer recipes - be looking for it soon!

Have a beautiful day!

weekend happenings

My weekend was filled with lots of food and lots of friends who made for a fantastic and relaxing time.  Unfortunately, I am losing my trigger finger for my camera.  I'll just give you the highlights in my own words.  =)

Friday Night BBQ

Just a small group of us gathered around a fire pit, enjoying homemade burgers and all the fixings, listening to summer music and enjoying the amazing company!

Saturday Night Fiesta

Again, a small group of people (three families from church) enjoyed a chance for kids to play and parents/adults to talk (I played and talked =)...I know I am a parent but my kid is still "cooking" so I don't really count it since the other families have two and four children.  But it was lovely to spend time and strengthen friendships.

Sunday Family Lunch

My middle brother-in-law was home from his extended semester in LA and his girlfriend came down for a lovely meal.  My mother-in-law cooked and it was nice to catch up with family.

And looking forward to many more weekends of food, friends, and fun summer decor like these paper lanterns from a party we had last summer!

Have a beautiful almost summer day!  

the reality of being a pregnant lady

So I am getting further along.  I am now 18 weeks and have a decided baby bump.  =)  I'll put pictures of that up later.  But right now I had to rant about a little something.

Now I'm not much of a drinker but I love pairing wine or beer with different meals.  In my attempts to be a good mom starting now, I have cut out virtually all caffeine and all alcohol.  But I made a dinner last night that just begged for a good beer.  So the hubby got one out for himself and then turned to me and asked what I wanted to drink.  I sighed and said juice.  I was a little caught up in my dilemma that I got a picture of our relative drink situations but totally forgot to snap a shot of how good dinner looked.  =)

I do like my cherry grape juice but a beer sounded really good too.  =)

But in happier news, we were able to eat outside yesterday which was thoroughly enjoyable and I quickly forgot about how much I'm looking forward to being able to hold my baby versus carry the kid around inside of me.  And I will make that dinner again and take pictures because it is an awesome and easy summer grilling idea.  =)

My Unintended Hiatus

As you all probably noticed, I have been rather MIA after Christmas.  I do have several very good reasons for this.  A few of them are as follows:

• Visiting family in Hawaii.  My brother was getting ready to ship out with the Army and we all wanted to make the most of our last few days with him as a civilian.  =)  We had some awesome nights playing games and eating all of our favorite childhood foods.  ::sigh:: It made me want to go back to those days.  You know, the easy ones - or at least we realize they were easy now.  =)

me and my handsome Army brother  =)

• Hubby started a new job.  This has been going pretty well so far but there are things that I wanted to be able to talk to him about and hear about and all those little things that happen during the day and things like that.
• We moved into a new house.  This is pretty obviously the biggest of the three...at least in the amount of work that it requires to make it happen.  =)  We are renting a cute house near where we were living before but it is ours (we had been living with hubby's grandma for a while because we were trying really hard to buy a house with the market being so low).  But God had other plans and the buying the house thing hasn't worked out yet. But we are getting to play at it by renting this place.  I will take pictures and show you around once I get things more settled and put away.  I'm afraid the place looks very disheveled right now.  

I am excited to try this new year though.  I say "try" because so many things are changing so quickly that I think it will take me a little while to adjust.  But my goal in the next few days and weeks is to get caught up on all my blogging and blogging friends and to share with you some of the things that have been going on in my life since Christmas.  

Have a beautiful day!  I'm loving SoCal's 80 degree weather today.  Come and visit!  I have a guest room now!  =)